Gerrymandering/Redistricting

Kathay Feng, the national redistricting and representation director at Common Cause, a government watchdog group, warned that voting advocates would be closely monitoring for that kind of discrimination. Much of the America’s population growth over the last decade has come from non-white people. “Our top priority is ensuring that states that are adding congressional seats recognize the population growth fueled by communities of color in the upcoming redistricting process,” Feng said in a statement.

During this census cycle, Rhode Island for the first time devoted $1.5 million in public and private money on census outreach efforts. That, along with the fact that Rhode Island hosted the only test run of the census in 2018, helped keep the head count in the public eye, said John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island. “There was this constant drumbeat that we could lose our second seat,” Marion said.

Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, said the new rules Ohio voters have approved will require districts to be more compact — by keeping counties and municipalities whole, among other things — and will make districts more competitive. “One of the things we know we won’t have is ‘the snake on the lake,’” she said, referring to Ohio’s 9th District, which strings along Lake Erie to merge the distant cities of Toledo and Cleveland, both heavily Democratic. That’s a gerrymandering tactic that merges areas where one party dominates, no matter how distant they might be, into the same district as a way to dilute their voters’ political power when electing members of Congress or the state legislature. Eliminating that level of manipulation will mean both Republican and Democratic incumbents could see tougher contests next fall, Turcer said.

Dan Vicuna, the national redistricting manager with Common Cause, one of the groups that helped draw Florida’s current congressional map, said Florida has more time than other states to draw new boundaries despite Census delays caused by COVID-19. “We’ll be keeping a watchful eye on whether the process is fair and transparent as required,” Vicuna said, adding that some states will face a deadline crunch to draw districts in time for the next election, “but fortunately Florida is not one of them.” “There’s plenty of time for robust public participation,” Vicuna said.